The present invention relates generally to protection circuits for semiconductor devices and, more specifically, to an electrostatic discharge protection circuit having a graded junction for shunting current through a substrate, and a method for forming the protection circuit.
An electrostatic discharge (ESD) is a high-stress condition that can destroy integrated circuits. Particularly at risk are Metal Oxide Semiconductor (MOS) circuits, due to the presence of a thin gate oxide. As integrated circuits have decreased in size, gate oxide thickness has also decreased, currently having thicknesses of roughly 100 angstroms. At this thickness, a voltage of only around 10 volts can destroy the oxide during a discharge event. MOS integrated circuits are especially sensitive to damage from an ESD.
An ESD event begins when two areas of the chip are at different potentials and are separated by an insulator. If the potential difference between these two areas becomes large enough, current flows through the insulator in an attempt to equilibrate the charge. This current may destroy the insulative properties of the insulator, rendering the chip inoperative.
ESDs are earned to the integrated circuit through external terminals or pins. The pins of the integrated circuit are normally coupled to the integrated circuit through respective bonding pads formed on the integrated circuit. Therefore, for ESD protection to be effective against externally applied ESDs, the ESD protection should be near the bonding pad. ESD protection circuits are useful not only during operation of the chip, but also when a chip is not secured within an electronic device, such as during installation, or other times when the chip is being handled.
Some areas of the integrated circuit coupled to the pins are more susceptible to damage than others. For example, a ground plane and a Vcc plane within a chip are relatively large and spread out over the majority of the chip. These planes have a large capacitance with respect to the substrate. Consequently, these planes can sink a large amount of current without damage to an insulative layer separating the planes from the substrate. Conversely, each separate DQ circuit, which is coupled to part of the circuit yielding only 1 bit of data, is particularly susceptible to an ESD because the brunt of the ESD is borne by the relatively small output buffer circuitry. Thus, an ESD carried through a pin coupled to one of the DQ circuits is potentially more dangerous to the integrated circuit than an ESD carried through a pin coupled to the ground or Vcc plane.
Some prior art circuits for minimizing or eliminating damage due to an ESD include resistors, serially or parallel connected diodes, silicon controlled rectifiers, or other devices integrated into the substrate of the integrated circuit for limiting the currents of the ESD. One such prior art ESD protection circuit 2 is shown in FIG. 1. An NMOS transistor 4 is formed in a substrate 6 that is biased at a ground potential. The transistor 4 includes a drain 8 connected to an input lead 10 that is coupled through a bonding pad (not shown) to an external terminal or pin of a chip. The bonding pad is also coupled to another circuit on the chip (not shown) that is being protected by the protection circuit 2, such as an output buffer. The transistor 4 also includes a source 12 and a gate 14, both of which are tied to a ground voltage. The gate 14 is separated from the substrate 6 by a gate oxide 18. A pair of field oxide regions 16 separate the protection circuit 2 from the rest of an integrated circuit. If an electrostatic potential difference between the input lead 10 and the substrate 6 becomes greater than a trigger voltage, a discharge between these two areas occurs. Since the chip that includes this protection circuit 2 may be loose, uninstalled, or have no power applied to it, the ground voltage may be at a voltage much higher or much lower than a typical ground voltage of 0 volts. Similarly, the input lead 10 could likewise be at almost any potential, above or below the level of the substrate. The important consideration is not the absolute potential of the input lead 10 and the substrate 6, but rather their potential difference.
Two kinds of ESDs exist, positive and negative. In a negative ESD, the input lead 10 is coupled to a negative voltage of sufficient magnitude with respect to the substrate 6 to trigger an ESD with current flowing from the chip through the input lead 10. Negative ESDs typically do less damage to the chip than positive ESDs. One reason negative ESDs do less damage than positive ESDs is that, during a negative ESD, the MOS transistor 4 turns on because the input lead 10 is more negative with respect to the gate 14 than the threshold voltage of the MOS transistor. Thus, current flows from the grounded source 12, which is acting as a drain, across a channel formed at the top surface of the substrate 6 and into the drain 8, which is acting as a source. Additionally, if the voltage applied to the input lead 10 is lower with respect to the substrate 6 than the turn on voltage of the junction between the substrate and the drain 8, charge will additionally flow directly from the substrate and into the drain. Thus, there are multiple paths available to carry the current flowing from the ground plane to the output terminal during a negative ESD.
During a positive ESD, the MOS transistor 4 does not operate as an MOS transistor, but rather becomes a current conduction mechanism operating like a bipolar NPN transistor. This bipolar transistor is made of the N-type drain 8, the P-type substrate 6 and the N-type source 12, corresponding respectively to a collector, base, and emitter. During a positive ESD event, the voltage applied to the drain 8 increases relative to the substrate 6, thus increasing the reverse bias along the drain 8-substrate 6 junction and increasing a space charge depletion region between these areas. The drain voltage continues to increase until the electric field across the depletion region becomes high enough to induce avalanche breakdown with the generation of electron-hole pairs. Generated electrons are swept through the depletion region and into the drain 8 towards the input lead 10, while generated holes drift through the substrate towards the ground contact. As current flows into the substrate 6, which is resistive, its voltage increases with respect to the source 12. Eventually the substrate potential becomes high enough to forward bias the substrate 6-source 12 junction, causing electrons to be emitted into the substrate from the source 12. Eventually, the NPN transistor is fully turned on with current flowing from the collector to the emitter.
As more current flows through the drain 8, it eventually causes localized heating along portions of the junction of the drain 8 and the substrate 6, especially near the field oxide regions 16. This localized heating can lead to physical breakdown, and eventual circuit inoperability. The curved nature of the drain 8-substrate 6 boundary causes a large electric field to exist at a curved area 20 of the drain. Due to this increased electric field. The current density is higher through the curved area 20 of the drain 8 than other parts of the drain during an ESD event. This effect is called charge crowding. Because of charge crowding, the drain 8 and the substrate 6 break down at the curved area 20 before other areas of the junction between them. This curved area 20 causes the chip to be susceptible to damage at a lower level of ESD than it otherwise would if the curved area 20 was not present. Because positive ESDs do more damage to integrated circuits than negative ESDs, protection circuits are designed to withstand the more dangerous positive ESDs. Thus, the invention will only be described as it relates to positive ESDs.
An additional problem with the prior art circuit 2 of FIG. 1 is that under certain conditions Gate Induced Drain Leakage (GIDL) may occur. GIDL can occur when the N-type drain 8 is at a higher potential than the grounded gate 14 and the grounded P-type substrate 6. Due to the reverse-bias between these areas, a space charge depletion region forms between the drain 8 and substrate 6, and a deep depletion layer exists along the surface of the drain 8 that is below the gate 14. The imparts a large electric field across the gate oxide 18. If the electric field becomes sufficiently large, in addition to a depletion region, an inversion layer will attempt to form at the top surface of the drain. As the holes arrive at the surface to form the inversion layer, they are drawn and are immediately swept across the space charge depletion region to the grounded substrate, which is at a lower potential for holes than the drain. Holes being swept into the substrate 6 is coincident with the generation of electrons, and these electrons are swept across the space charge depletion layer from the substrate into the drain 8. This flow of holes into the substrate 6 and electrons into the drain 8 appears as a leakage current that is gate induced, or GIDL.
Another conventional protection circuit 3, shown in FIG. 2 is used to minimize the effects of GIDL. The protection circuit 3 differs from the protection circuit 2 in that the gate oxide 18 of the latter is replaced by a curved gate oxide 19. Since the gate oxide 19 is thicker at areas near the drain 8, the electric field between the drain and the gate 14 is reduced, and GIDL effects are minimized. This prior art circuit, however, still does not solve the problem of charge crowding at the area 20 of the drain 8 and the problems of localized heating and substrate breakdown stemming therefrom.
Due to the effects of charge crowding, conventional ESD circuits breakdown at a much lower ESD level than would be possible if charge crowding were eliminated.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, a protection device for an integrated circuit is provided. The protection device includes a substrate in which both a source region and a drain region are formed. The drain region includes an extended drain region having a doping level less than the drain region. In another embodiment, the source region also includes an extended region having a lower doping level than the source region in itself.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, a protection device is provided that includes a substrate having a pad contact, including an inner and outer region, and a rail contact. The outer region of the pad contact has a lower doping concentration that the inner region. The rail contact may also include separate regions of high and low doping. Additionally, a deep oxide is formed within the substrate, separating the pad contact from the rail contact. In a related aspect of the invention, the substrate further includes a buried layer of opposite doping type below both the pad and contact regions.